Notebook 29: Cerebus #240 - 250

 MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

 Time for another notebook to go page by page over. The notebook covers – yes, you guessed it – Cerebus #240 through 250. We’ve seen pages from Dave’s 29^th notebook already, and since I haven’t created a tag to tag all these posts yet, here they are:

• Meeting F. Stop (Jan 2017): Front cover, page 3
• Another Nearly Finished Page from Cerebus #240 (May 2021): p. 5
• Fall And The River (Sept 2014): page 6, 15
• They're On a Boat (Jun 2020): p. 7
• Making a Stew (Sept 2020): p. 8
• Nearly Finished Page from Cerebus #240 (Sept 2020): p. 9
• Perfect Strangers Vs Pleasures Simple Life (Dec 2021): p. 10
• Yes, It's Another Page from Cerebus #240 (May 2021): p. 12
• Cerebus #240 Page 13 in Notebook Form (Nov 2021): p. 13
• Cerebus #240 Page 14 in Notebook Form (Dec 2021): p. 14
• Closing Like a Gate (May 2018): page 31
• Winky, Blinky, and Noddy (Jan 20): p. 44
• Going Home page 330 (Sept 2016): p. 45
• She Has Her Palnu Face On (Feb 20): p. 46
• Form & Void Shooting Script (July 2014): page 47, 51, 55
• The Destruction of Iest (Nov 2015): page 96, 156
• Dreams Part Deux (Nov 2015): page 157, 158
• They Give Us Those Nice Bright Colors (Sept 2015): page 208, 209
• They Brought Back Ektachrome (Jan 20): p. 210
• We Haven't Got A Boat (Jan 20): p. 211

 I left this note in one of those posts:

 The notebook started out as a 300 page notebook broken up into three sections, and only 150 pages were scanned: section 1 had 63 pages scanned, section 2 had 65 pages scanned, and section 3 had 22 pages scanned. There were only 11 pages missing, and the rest were blank.

Before I renumbered the notebooks so all notebooks were called ‘notebook’ instead of Albatross, this notebook was #26, which is why some of the post before say notebook #26. No, I’m not going to redo the old posts.

So onto page one of the notebook which we haven’t seen yet ‘cause well, take a look:

 Notebook 29, page #1

Well, page 169 of Going Home is the ‘title page’ for ‘book two’, but it doesn’t say book two. It just says Fall and the River, and the word ‘river’ is hand drawn. The next page is just as. . .entertaining:

Notebook 29, page #2

And yes, this appears on page 170 of Going Home. Word for word, though the formatting is different.

Next week: more from notebook #29. It does get better – look at the above posts if you can’t wait.